Haven
by cackles the witch
Summary: Remus and Sirius have found a haven among the relics of Sirius' past. R/S, post-Azkaban. Ficlet, Slash.


**Title**: Haven  
**Rating**: PG  
**Pairing**: Remus/Sirius  
**Word Count: **626**  
Summary**: Remus and Sirius have found a haven among the relics of Sirius' past.  
**Warnings: **slash. If you don't like the idea of manlove, please don't read.  
**Beta**: Thank you, **brknhalo241** . You rock!  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own any characters. Damn.

**A/N**: Written for a drabble meme on livejournal. The prompt was "anything but total angst" and of course, my mind had to go the angst route. This is also my first attempt at post-Azkaban Remus/Sirius, just so you know.

* * *

**Haven**

It could be any day, any time, and Remus supposes he should really know, but he's been holed up in this room, in this bed with his lover for what seems like forever, cocooned in the refuge of four peeling walls and a leaky roof over their heads. This could be any one of the dozens of flats he's lived in since leaving his parents' home after graduation but it isn't. It is the House of Black, the house his lover once called home, the house his parents never liked. He wonders what his mother would think if she were alive and knew he was with Sirius again, in this house, in his bed.

"Your mother always hated me."

It startles Remus, the words, the tone. "How did you – " he begins but stops himself asking. He already knows. They're still connected.

"She thought that you were taking advantage of me," Remus whispers, because it's the truth and this has always been the one place they could tell each other anything – in bed. It's why it fell apart the first time, when they were young – they'd stopped falling into bed together, making love and falling asleep in each other's arms.

"That if you'd never been bitten, you wouldn't have settled for me?"

Remus sighs. "Something like that." It is a harsh truth softened by the tangle of their naked limbs.

"If you'd been a bird," Sirius says after a moment, his head nestled on Remus' chest, "it would have been your father that hated me."

Remus tilts his head and gazes down at him. "How's that?"

"He'd have been convinced I'd mesmerised you with my charm and good looks." It's meant to be humorous, but there is something heavy and weary in Sirius' tone, as if the truth has settled there, in his deep, rough voice; a constant reminder that life is not what it seems, that the man he speaks of is not the man he is anymore.

It's that tiny stab of reality that tinges everything outside this room with bitter sadness, causing them to spring away from each other as soon as they roll out of bed and stand a little further apart than they used to around the others. Outside this room, this bed, stranded in the house Sirius grew up in, the house his lover loathes, they retreat to their corners like casual combatants, bouncing from foot-to-foot, readying themselves to throw punches and jabs without any real conviction; roll this way, parry that way, lunge, duck, thrust, fall away in a perfectly synchronised mime of emotion. But in bed, in this room, lying together naked and touching, their bodies moving in time, connected, they are Padfoot and Moony again.

"My father liked you."

"That's my point."

Remus can feel the smile stretching across his lover's face, the pressure of it against his chest as it spreads, and the way his heart swells surprises him. He's forgotten how it feels be in love, to be happy, if only for the length of a smile. It reminds him his mother was wrong.

"My mother meant well, but she didn't have a clue."

Sirius lifts his head and shifts higher to look at Remus properly. His grey eyes roam over Remus' lined face, as if trying to reconcile this tired, older man with the boy he used to know.

"She really didn't," Sirius breathes, leans closer and kisses him.

Remus forgets the world around him. The only thing that matters is in this room, in this bed, and he wants to hold on to it just a little bit longer, before the Order, Dumbledore, Life, comes barging in to force them from their haven, the dark shabby room they call home.


End file.
